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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Irrational Terrible Mom: Nutrients?

I'm going to write a few posts with the "Irrational, Terrible Mom" leader. More than a few times a day, I feel like I'm thoroughly ruining my daughter, so I figured I would run with that for my writing. I LITERALLY dusted off my laptop to do this. *stretches blog writing muscles* *pinches nerve* *curses*

I know I'm not terrible at parenting (shut up y'all, she is still alive and she seems pretty damn smart...), but there are so many areas where I could absolutely improve. So the combination of terrible and irrational seem to work well for this particular thought process of mine.

I took a sleeping pill (yay!) because I get to sleep downstairs tonight (yay!) and not worry about Baby D's cries. That means that I have a limited window of time in which to create this blog post in a coherent fashion, without having to do a walk of shame tomorrow morning for accidentally posting all of my deepest secrets on here while under the influence.

I was thinking today, as my one year old daughter was refusing to eat anything of substance, for yet another day, that I have totally failed when it comes to nutrition for her. She was sick a few months back, and we were desperate to get her to eat. She went from eating an impressive amount of food, to nothing at all for days. It was horrible. I live with perpetual, deep anxiety over her consumption of food ever since we used to have to do everything within our power to wake her every 3 hours and force feed her when she was premature.

So... when she was sick, I removed all my restrictions. We were begging her to eat coffee cake at one point. I threw juice, the nastiest of pre-packaged crackers... hell we even charmed her into eating chocolate at dinner. Short term gain for long term pain. SO MUCH SUGAR.

The child will only eat yogurt-covered raisins now. And I question just how much (read: probably none) ACTUAL yogurt is on those things.

I feel like I've failed her. All day long, as I offer her apples, yogurt, hummus, avocados, oatmeal, oranges, grapes (aka "pre-raisins"), I feel I can sense the Hubs twitching at his desk at work, disappointed in my effectiveness to get her to eat something actually fresh and wholesome (though, don't get me wrong, that oatmeal is pre-sweetened and packaged, and the yogurt has a shit ton of sugar in it, too).

But this child is the fruit of my loins. Or the raisins of my loins. Ew, no, let's go back to "fruit of".

She likes her some sugah. Just like Momma. Hence why I am still tipping the scales at my 8-months-pregnant weight. Oh yeah. (I really hope you just pictured the Kool-aid Man with my face, crashing through a wall, or else that was all for naught).

Visual approximation of me.

The child knows what Coke is. I have never given it, but she has seen me drink a bottle of it twice. TWICE. Her Grandpa drinks Diet Coke, and has shared a can with her (WTH?!?), but was advised to never do that again. But the kid knows. She even asked for it the other day. A one year old asked for Coke, from the fridge.

She can talk. A lot. And she knows what she wants. She's very clear. So if she says no to me, I know she won't eat it. I try, in vain, and it gets thrown to the dogs from her high chair. (Please don't ever, ever look closely at the tile floor in my kitchen. Martha Stewart would probably convulse.) At a certain point, that's crazy making, so I if she says no, I don't bother trying.

She seems to eat SO MUCH better for the Hubs, especially if I am not around, or if I am lingering quietly on the outskirts of the activity. But the reality is that she is with me for most of our days, and most of her meals.

So, tonight, after her teddy bear excitedly ate some avocado, she finally put some in her mouth. As I distracted her by moving around the kitchen, singing her name and dancing like a tool (complete with a pinched nerve in my lower back) it felt like victory.

When we are out, friends' children eat cucumber. And bananas. And lovely, organic wonderful things, while my child will only eat craisins, raisins, or raisin-variants (she loves wine tasting).

So, my dear child, when you have Rickets, Scurvy, bone density issues, fatigue, anemia and long-term vision problems - please remember that your Daddy negotiated with you to eat chocolate at dinner, and begged you to eat coffee cake.

2 comments:

Clearly, duct tape is not any part of a solution here, so I really have no advice. And you're right, the "raisins of my loins" is entirely the wrong image. Good luck with the feeding. Presumably the fruit will eat enough to keep skin from seeds. Or something like that.